


The Storm

by SLTventures



Series: Berena based short stories [2]
Category: Holby City
Genre: Dementia, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-27
Updated: 2016-12-27
Packaged: 2018-09-12 12:46:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9072292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SLTventures/pseuds/SLTventures
Summary: I originally wrote this story in July 2015, it featuring a man and a woman, not related to any TV show. I've just adapted it to apply to Bernie/ Serena 30yrs on in their relationship. Beware you may want tissues to hand!





	

Bernie lay scrunched up on her side, almost foetal-like waiting for the next crash of thunder, while at the same time hoping it would stay quiet forever.  
It didn’t matter that she was now a grown-woman. Ever since being a small girl who could then rush into her mother’s comforting arms, she had hated thunderstorms. It didn’t matter that she and anyone she’d ever known had not been struck by lightning, or had tragedy as the result of a storm, she still couldn’t get to like them. It was the fact it was a natural thing that she had no control over, there was no way she could stop it from happening, and that scared her. That scared her so much. More than she’d ever dared tell anyone for fear of ridicule.  
Anyone apart from Serena that is. She had never ridiculed her for being scared of storms, had never questioned her reasons why, just had let her lie there with her head in her lap, while she stroked her hair. Then she felt soothed, and able to face the storm and all it threw at her.  
An almighty crash of thunder, jolted Bernie’s thoughts, she heard a voice in the room shout out ‘I’m scared, I want my Mother!’ – it was her voice, the same as she had shouted so many times as a child. But now she wasn’t a child. Now she was a grown-woman, one who had been in the Army for god’s sake, and had faced worse horrors than a mere storm.  
But Mother wasn’t there to comfort her. She had passed away forty years ago. It didn’t feel like forty years, it felt like just yesterday. Bernie let the tears that had involuntarily escaped from her eyes roll down her face. Before they could reach the pillow she shouted out again ‘F’kin hell !’ as another crash of thunder struck just outside the window. It sounded like a load of rubbish bins flailing on the concrete. Why was the noise so loud? What had just happened? She didn’t dare look out of the window, the lightning might strike, flashing in her face, striking her as though it were a dagger! She knew that sounded ridiculous, but she couldn’t help it.  
She wished that Serena was here, she could stroke her hair and she would feel reassured. She didn’t have to say anything, just be there, be there with her, now. But she too was gone, not gone like her mother, but gone in the sense that her spirit, her soul, what made Serena her delightful self, was no longer there.  
Serena was lying in bed, snoring loudly, blissfully unaware of the storm. Bernie was glad she was resting now, as she was in constant turmoil whenever she was awake. Dementia had taken her spirit, her soul, and her ability to recognise who Bernie was most of the time.  
Most of the time she slept on the sofa now, she couldn’t cope sharing the bed with Serena anymore. Whenever Serena woke, she didn’t know who Bernie was, and would start screaming that there was a mad lady in her bed, who was there to hurt her. That piercing scream, she could hear it now, it stayed in her head most of the day, it helped to block out the tinnitus, though she wasn’t sure which noise was preferable. Bernie had managed to calm her the first time, eventually, after being hit so many times she wanted to cry. Serena was scared, she knew that, but it scared Bernie so much too. But the second, and third and she had lost count now, of the number of times, since, Serena had woken and been scared by her being there, she couldn’t help her, she couldn’t do it anymore. It broke her heart not to sleep curled up with the woman she loved, the woman she had loved for 30 years. It broke her heart that her darling Serena, her generous beautiful Serena, was gone to her forever. She couldn’t bear the thought of Serena moving out to a care home, but she knew it was only a matter of time before it would happen; if she stayed, it would break Bernie too, and then she’d be no good to help her.  
Serena had continued to care for her nephew Jason, long after Elinor had finally grown up and sorted her life out, and moved to New Zealand. Bernie loved Jason like he were their own son, just like Serena had. He kept in touch by Skype but now lived at the opposite end of the country with his wife Frankie – a lovely lady who shared many of Jason’s traits and interests.  
Bernie realised the air was quiet outside, she’d not seen any flashes of light for a while, and the sky had stopped thundering. She still didn’t dare get up to see what damage it had left in its wake, but rolled over on the sofa, and tried to get to sleep.  
Within fifteen minutes the only sound in the house was the alternating rhythm of snores, first Serena’s then Bernie’s, and finally they were joined together again, they might have been a room apart, but in her dreams Bernie was curled up with the woman she had loved for 30 years - and they were at peace.


End file.
